While Climbing the Wall

She had 4 younger siblings with her, two whom she had to carry, and five oranges in a net bag. That was it. Somehow she made it. Many other worlds came to an end because no sergeant with an M-16 and a fake Rolex was there to bribe the bastard that last instant before he would have shot her. Like walking through fire for days and being fired on as you lift your brother on board. By your own people. by your own people, which people are mine, she asked, where did we lose each other? The monster's blood floods full now on the utterly unleashed beast. Non Grata in Laos, on his birthday, he spared the sniper in front of his men. We'll take the spell this place put on us back home, he said, letting the sniper loose. It will eat away at us until the last of our empires sink under the sea. Lloyd was never relieved. they kept wanting him back even after he was dying...they are all gone now, but the poison rages on.

 Things have greatly changed, we are no loger even allowed the illusion we once had of the heroic reporter. We are largely informed, if at all, by think tank frankensteins and sleazy bimbos. Freedom isn't free, as they say. I saw John Trudell give a talk about 10 years ago. He said the white man's sense of freedom was perverse as was his concept of knowledge. Warmaker keeps everything far away. And if you are in it, if you live in the gulf, he keeps you far away. If you try to report the truth beyond what warmaker is willing to part with, then he puts you far away, or dresses you up like a clown when you sleep and takes a picture of you with a sheep. If you don't fall apart after that you might get an invitation to join the Washington Press Club

So up on West Seattle's Pigeon Hill my daughter is going over to her boyfriends house (he's black my daughter is white). His mom was not home and had locked the door. He decides he can get in through the side window. While he is climbing the wall a squad car ramps up over the curb. Officer approaches with weapon drawn. Boyfriend sees gun and manages to flip himself inside the house before cop can ....shoot him.
My daughter, who is pretty darn pale, starts thinking fast. Cop asks what's going on. She tells him it is her house and her boyfriend is helping her get inside cause she forgot her key. Cop tells her to have boyfriend open front door. He does. Cop searches him. Other cop car by now arrives backup. There are inside the house several pictures of family members. All black, including boyfriend.
Cop asks daughter "So where does your mom work?"
Boyfriend realizes what is happening and cant stop laughing.
"She works at Dreamgirls," my daughter lies, mentioning a local downtown strip club chain.
"Oh, " says cop, who my daughter says now seems to be more comfortable. She says she mentioned the strip club because in cop movies that is where they all hang out.
"Can I ask you a question, officers?"
"What."
"Why are you standing in my front room?"
The cops looked at each other and then at daughter's boy friend who is writhing on the couch trying to control himself.
"We just wanted to make sure you are okay," the first officer said, looking at her boyfriend with disgust. "Have a good day and get another key made."
It wasn’t her house. All the pictures on the walls and end tables were of black people. Her word as a white girl over rode the obvious aspects of reality. One of the pictures prominently displayed was of her boyfriend.
These guys, sometimes you gotta wonder.



Whatever the hand can grasp, whatever the mind can grasp, a rock or a thought, a bird or a fear, a book or a reality brimming with illusions, a handful of river stream, an incomprehensible history, a tunic, a faith. What it takes to deliver a single slice of toast vs. what it takes to accept one's own hunger in mindful silence. Freedom is doing without. Desire is the how the poison enters us and makes us the poison, too; regardless of what we think we do or do not believe. Every word ever spoken is carried like ash on the wind. This world is not ours but we can still be hers.